…looking for impacts
How might our homes & families change?
How might our work change?
How might our hobbies & leisure differ?
How might we travel & communicate?
How might childhood & education differ?
How might our environment change?
How might government & economy differ?
Notes:
The following two slides offer examples of trends and emerging issues of change. As you read these trends, and I describe them, you can begin to explore their possible impacts by asking yourselves the questions listed above.
And again, I have at no time said anything about predicting the future. Reputable futures researchers do not, in the main, offer to predict anything. They might offer to forecast quantitatively measurable trends for you. They will with great enthusiasm offer to help you explore the range of uncertainties represented by all the trends of change with the potential to affect you.
Each of these trends and their potential impacts represent both threats and opportunities to organizational visions and goals. The exercises of mapping impacts using futures wheels, and organizing trend forecasts and their impacts via scenarios of alternative possible outcomes, helps organizations create new products, services, markets, and visions of themselves.
Please note that the following trends are, again, NOT PREDICTIONS -- rather, they have been collected from the insights of numerous analysts in business, science, and academia with regard to potential changes in the next fifty years. Dates are attached merely to provide comparative estimates of how long it might take each trend to become widespread.